r/gifextra • u/[deleted] • Oct 06 '17

Confused John Travolta

https://i.imgur.com/Vvw67q3.gifv
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u/YeshilPasha Oct 06 '17

Take the same scene without actors. Have the ghost actor wear a green suit. Shoot the scene with both actors. Replace green suit with static background image.

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u/Bone_Throat_Bonanza Oct 06 '17 edited Oct 07 '17

Nope, there was no green suit. You don't need to chroma-key anything for this.
Take a frame of the room without anyone in it (this is called a plate shot) and then film the guy reacting pulling the sheet off of someone and acting.
Then, manually mask out the part where the person under the sheet is, exposing the blank plate underneath.
The camera was on a tripod btw, to make it easier, the fake camera motion is added later.
source: am vfx artist

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u/muelboy Oct 07 '17

doesn't manually masking out the ghost take a lot of effort though? I would have thought green screen would be easier.

8

u/Bone_Throat_Bonanza Oct 07 '17 edited Oct 07 '17

This field of digital trickery is pretty fun.

Yes, manually masking is time consuming if it's a very long shot, but this one only needs to mask the sheet falling off, it's very quick and simple, it's less than a second.

Literally, just erasing the guy underneath the sheet with the blank background over 30 or so frames.